The human rights organization Amnesty International has declared jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his former business partner Platon Lebedev to be prisoners of conscience, Kasparov.ru reports.

The announcement came the same day as a Moscow City Court ruling to uphold a December 2010 verdict that extended the pair’s current prison sentences through 2017, reducing them slightly for a 2016 release. The case is recognized internationally as politically motivated, specifically at the behest of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

“For several years now these two men have been trapped in a judicial vortex that answers to political not legal considerations,” said a press release from Amnesty International on Tuesday. “Today’s verdict makes it clear that Russia’s lower courts are unable, or unwilling, to deliver justice in their cases.”

Just last week, the organization said that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev could not be considered prisoners of conscience, telling Radio Free Liberty/Radio Europe that “a prisoner of conscience is a person who was sentenced for his or her views or beliefs,” while “anyone who might be involved in wrongdoing or even crimes, but whose case was launched only for political reasons, can be called a political prisoner but not a prisoner of conscience.”

However, Tuesday’s statement indicates that the new verdict has definitively pushed Amnesty over the fence.

“The failure of the appeal court to address the fundamental flaws in the second trial and the fact that Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev have already spent eight years in jail on barely distinguishable charges, points to the conclusion that their second convictions have been sought for political reasons relating purely to who they are,” said Nicola Duckworth, director of Amnesty International’s Europe and Central Asia Program.

Vadim Klyuvgant, a lawyer for the prisoners, said that “this is a somewhat belated statement of a perfectly obvious fact – about seven years so.”

Harsh criticism of the upheld ruling has resounded throughout Europe and the United States. In a statement released on Tuesday, European Union Foreign Affairs Chief Catherine Ashton said she was “troubled by allegations of numerous violations in due process which reflect systemic problems within the Russian judiciary. The Khodorkovsky and Lebedev case has become emblematic for the lack of confidence in how the law is applied in Russia today.”

European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek was also appalled at the behavior of the Russian judicial system. “This case was marred with alleged violations of due process and fair trial from the very start. It shows unfortunately that there is still a very long path for Russia to take to improve its rule of law and protection of human rights,” he said.

Russia’s Public Chamber and Ministry of International Affairs both criticized Amnesty International’s about-face as “unexpected” and “one-sided and politicized,” respectively.

On Wednesday, the European Court of Human Rights announced that their own ruling on a complaint filed by Khodorkovsky would be issued on May 31. A press release on the court’s website outlined a list of the prisoner’s complaints against the Russian government:

Relying on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment), Mr Khodorkovskiy complains in particular about the conditions in the remand prisons where he has been detained and in the courtroom during his trial. He also complains under Article 5 (right to liberty and security) about the unlawfulness of his arrest and subsequent detention pending investigation and trial, excessive length of the detention and unfairness of the detention proceedings. Lastly, he alleges that the criminal proceedings against him are politically motivated, in breach of Article 18 (limitation on use of restrictions on rights).

Vladimir Milov, former energy minister and prominent opposition figure: “Most likely, the sentence is going to be harsh, and I never had any different predictions than that. This is Vladimir Putin’s personal vendetta: he has a personal stake in this. When the Yukos case had only just begun, Putin saw it as a battle for power and Khodorkovsky as a competitor, a real political adversary. And Putin fears him: this is clear from how aggressively he talks about the process.”

Political analyst Dmitri Oreshkin: “It’s too bad for Judge Danilkin. It’s clear that both Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were prepared for the fact that they would be convicted. It’s clear that we don’t have independent courts and that there are no chances in the foreseeable future of becoming a state ruled by law. But there are rules to the game, rules called “arbitrariness.” Any sentence more than 8 years would be cruel, so therefore it won’t overlap the term that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev already served. Ten, 12, or 14 years – it’s not even important. What’s important is that it’s going to be imposed not by the courts or the law, but by the government.”

Igor Yakovenko, secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists: “The commentary is just as banal and predictable as the sentence. Everyone I talked to recently nevertheless had hope that Judge Danilkin would suddenly turn out to be a human being, oriented on the law and not on his own job-related considerations; they hoped for a miracle that Medvedev would turn out to be the president and not what he actually is. But there was no miracle – the country, obviously, will keep on sinking for an unknown period of time. The 2000s will keep going, and that’s sad.”

The Telegraph gives a full account of the story:

Judge Victor Danilkin said the former chief executive of oil company Yukos and Platon Lebedev, his business partner, had been found guilty of illegally obtaining some $25 billion (£16.3 billion) in oil revenues from the now defunct company.

“The court has found that Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev committed embezzlement acting in collusion with a group of people and using their professional positions,” Mr Danilkin told a courtroom full of media and defendants’ relatives.

Mr Khodorkovsky’s legal team immediately announced it would appeal. His lawyers attacked the judge for bowing to outside pressure. “We have no doubt that the court was pressured and the court did not make an independent decision,” Vadim Klyugvant, a lawyer for Mr Khodorkovsky, said.

Mr Khodorkovsky and Mr Lebedev appeared unmoved by the verdict. Mr Lebedev was seen reading a book and exchanging notes with his defence team, while Mr Khodorkovsky exchanged glances with his mother.

Police arrested 30 people outside the courtroom where supporters of Mr Khodorkovsky chanted “freedom” and “down with Putin”. Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister and former president, dismantled Yukos after Mr Khodorkovsky challenged powerful forces in Russia’s establishment.

The defence has maintained that the charges, which amount to stealing all the oil Yukos produced between 1998 and 2003, are absurd and politically motivated. The verdict seemed not to take account of testimony by key public figures including German Gref, the head of Russia’s biggest state owned bank, who said in court that the oil trading scheme at the heart of the case was legal. The judge, who read the verdict for eight hours before adjourning yesterday, also dismissed a green light from audits of Yukos by PricewaterhouseCoopers as based on incomplete and false information.

International reaction raised enduring concerns about Russia’s judicial system.

The [British] Foreign Office said the conviction could threaten trade relations between Britain and Russia. A Foreign Office spokesperson said the law should be applied in a “non-discriminatory and proportional way” in order to sustain an environment “in which investors can remain confident that they can do business, and that property and other rights are soundly protected”.

Guido Westerwelle, the German foreign minister, said he was “very worried”. “The way the trial has been conducted is extremely dubious and a step backward on the road toward a modernisation of the country … It is in the interest of our Russian partners to take these concerns seriously and to stand up for the rule of law, democracy and human rights.”

Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, [s]aid the verdict would have a “negative impact on Russia’s reputation” and raised “serious questions about selective prosecution – and about the rule of law being overshadowed by political considerations”.

Reading the full verdict and sentencing is expected to take several days. Most observers expect Mr Khodorkovsky to be in prison at least until 2017, although if the judge shows leniency he could be out in three years.

Mr Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man, is reaching the end of an eight-year sentence for tax evasion, which was widely viewed as punishment for funding opposition parties in defiance of Mr Putin.

After the first trial, Yukos was broken up and its assets snapped up at knock-down prices by state-owned oil companies.

Mr Putin has made his views of the former oligarch clear. In a television phone-in on December 16 he compared Mr Khodorkovsky with Bernard Madoff, the convicted US fraudster. Mr Putin also said that “thieves should sit behind bars”, even though the court had not delivered a verdict.

As the BBC reports:

Former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has told a court in Moscow that the fate of all Russians rests on the outcome of his trial for embezzlement.

He said no-one believed he would be acquitted of the latest charges, which could extend his jail term until 2017.

The former head of the Yukos oil company has already spent seven years in prison for tax evasion and is scheduled for release next year.

The judge has adjourned the case until he delivers a verdict on 15 December.

Khodorkovsky, 47, and his business partner Platon Lebedev stand accused of stealing more than two billion barrels of oil between 1998 and 2003, charges which the former tycoon has denounced as rubbish.

“It’s not me and Platon Lebedev who are now standing trial, it’s all the Russian people,” he told the court in his final address on Tuesday.

He sympathised with the judge, Viktor Danilkin, and said that millions of people were following the trial, hoping that Russia would become a country of freedom and law.

Khodorkovsky added that he did not wish to die in jail, but added: “If that is what is needed, I have no hesitation.”

Prosecutor Valery Lakhtin said on Monday that Khodorkovsky’s defence had been built on a lie, based on creating a public perception of a political element to the trial.

Many critics believe the government wants the former tycoon kept behind bars for as long as possible because he challenged former president Vladimir Putin by financing the opposition.

Now prime minister, Mr Putin, is thought likely to run for the presidency again in 2012.

Khodorkovsky has already spent time in prisons in eastern Siberia and in the capital.

But prosecutors have asked the judge for a long prison sentence.

Crowds of Khodorkovsky’s friends and relatives as well as observers and journalists have been battling to get inside a small courtroom in central Moscow to hear the closing stages of this latest trial.

Khodorkovsky’s closing speech can be read in its entirety in English here and in Russian here.

Supporters of the oil tycoon are hailing Gref’s testimony as a major point in their favor, however, as the former government minister stated that not only were Khodorkovsky’s actions perfectly legal, but that the gas theft the government is accusing him of could not have happened without his awareness.

The Associated Press reports:

Imprisoned tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky received a boost in his embezzlement trial on Monday when a former government minister told a Moscow court that the masssive theft the magnate is charged with could not have taken place without official knowledge.

Once Russia’s richest man, Khodorkovsky has already served six years of an eight-year sentence for tax evasion. As his release date approached last year, prosecutors hit him with the new charges of embezzling of $25 billion in petroleum products. If convicted, the 46-year-old Khodorkovsky faces up to 22 more years in prison.

The three hours of testimony by German Gref, who was minister of economic development when the crackdown against Khodorkovsky began in 2003, may not sway Russia’s notoriously weak court system. But they showed that some of Russia’s top insiders are prepared to take the stand in defense of the embattled oligarch.

“Checking on such matters was not part of my job, other agencies exist for that … However, if embezzlement had been discovered, I would have been made aware of it,” said Gref, a liberal economist who is currently chairman of Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank.

Outside the courtroom, Khodorkovsky’s lawyers described Gref’s statement as a major victory.

“It shows that at the time when this oil was allegedly being stolen, the government did not know it. So for prosecutors to claim now, many years later, that this oil was then being embezzled looks all the more unreasonable,” defense lawyer Konstantin Rifkin told The Associated Press.

Monday’s hearing was unusual in that the court allowed Khodorkovsky to question Gref, who was deputy head of the State Property Ministry when Khodorkovsky took control of the Yukos oil corporation.

Through the small window in the defendant’s cage, Khodorkovsky, who has served most of his sentence in a Siberian prison, stuck to a technical line of questioning, appearing nervous at the chance to interrogate a man so close to his perceived enemies in the government.

Gref drew snickers from the court audience when he was unable to answer whether he sat on the board of a state pipeline company, but he admitted that it was perfectly legal for Yukos to buy oil at steep discounts from its subsidiaries — one of the methods the prosecution is claiming that Khodorkovsky used to embezzle the oil.

The new trial is becoming a who’s who in Russian politics. Last month former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov testified on behalf of Khodorkovsky — calling prosecutors’ charges “absurd” — and on Tuesday former energy minister Viktor Khristenko is scheduled to take the stand.

Khodorkovsky’s lawyers have tried to call Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as a witness in the case, as well as numerous other officials who have direct knowledge of the state’s campaign to dismantle Yukos.

For more coverage from the Other Russia on Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the second Yukos case:

• Khodorkovsky’s Hunger Strike Puts Spotlight on Medvedev
• Khodorkovsky Calls Putin to Court
• Former Russian PM Reveals Putin’s Campaign Against Tycoon

From the Moscow Times:

Kasyanov told the Khamovnichesky District Court that the changes were politically motivated and contradicted the everyday practices of oil companies.

“By the end of 2003, I had a clear understanding that both were arrested under political motives,” he said.

Kasyanov said he tried to talk with Putin after Lebedev was arrested in July 2003 and Khodorkovsky was arrested in October that year, but Putin refused to discuss the issue with him. Only on the third try did Putin reply, he said.

“I asked Putin to clarify what he knew about the situation, but he refused twice, and then he gave me an answer,” Kasyanov said.

“He said Yukos financed Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, political parties that it was allowed to finance, but also the Communist Party, which it wasn’t allowed to.”

Khodorkovsky and his lawyers have been trying for months to convince the court to call the prime minister as a witness. Until Monday, it had dismissed this possibility as “premature,” despite a series of questions penned by Khodorkovsky that only Vladimir Putin would be able to properly address.

After Kasyanov’s testimony, the idea that such a subpoena would be premature made even less sense than before. Therefore, lawyers for the defense requested once again that the court call in Prime Minister Putin, as well as Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, arguing that new circumstances had come to light that made their interrogations necessary for the case.

On Thursday, however, the court turned down the lawyers’ request. Judge Viktor Danilkin had said previously that he “did not find any legal basis” for the subpoenas, and now said that the new arguments by the defense left no different impression. The prime minister and finance minister would be interrogated only if they personally appeared in court, he said.

Prosecutor Vyacheslav Smirnov, meanwhile, made it clear that there would be no interrogation of the prime minister in the Khamovnichesky Court, period. When journalists asked him why, Smirnov responded: “Because we live on the ground.”

The ex-CEO of former oil giant Yukos announced his hunger strike in a letter to Russian Supreme Court Chairman Vyacheslav Lebedev; his lawyers published its content on their website Tuesday morning. The letter outlines how a Moscow court ruling to detain Khodorkovsky and his co-defendant, Platon Lebedev, for another three months violates a procedural amendment introduced last month by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. The two are currently on trial facing charges from the Russian government of embezzlement that they dismiss as obviously untrue and politically motivated.

“The Khamovnichesky Court, by ruling on May 14, 2010, to extend my arrest, blatantly disregarded the changes recently incorporated into article 108 of the Criminal Procedure Code [UPK] of the Russian Federation,” says the letter. The changes referred to allow those charged with economic crimes to be released on bail except for under a limited number of circumstances: if their identity cannot be established, if they lack a place of residence in Russia, or if they have attempted to flee the country or hide from investigators. None of these circumstances apply to Khodorkovsky or Lebedev, who have been sitting out their 8-year prison terms in Siberia since 2005 as the result of a fraud case that was also widely viewed as politically motivated. Their lawyers had reminded the court of these amendments, which were introduced in response to the scandalous death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in pretrial detention last November, before the verdict was reached on Friday.

Nevertheless, Khodorkovsky goes on, “the court did not even consider it necessary to explain the reason for not adhering to the law.” Moreover, he said that he knew of other cases where the new amendments had been similarly disregarded. He stressed that while he the ruling had little effect on his own situation, his hunger strike was geared towards protesting the precedent that it would set.

“I can’t agree to something where the creation of a precedent in such a high-profile case would go unnoticed by the country’s administration, since it will immediately be replicated by corrupt bureaucrats in hundreds of other, less high-profile cases,” explained the former Yukos CEO.

Khodorkovsky said he wants “President Medvedev to know exactly how the law that was adopted altogether a month ago by his initiative… is being put to use, or, more accurately, is being sabotaged.” Therefore, he intends to strike until he gets confirmation that the president has received “exhaustive information” on the precedent being set by the Khamovnichesky Court in failing to adhere to existing law.

Supreme Court Chairman Vyacheslav Lebedev said that he has received Khodorkovsky’s letter and promised to look into the allegations and provide a response. Sources in Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service told RIA Novosti that they would be keeping track of Khodorkovsky’s health, but issued no official comment. President Medvedev has so far given no response.

Vadim Klyuvgant, a lawyer for Khodorkovsky and Lebedev, reiterated his client’s sentiment that the Khamovnichesky Court ruling is a “sign of catastrophe” that “is not so bad for our clients as it is for the entire country and for its president.”

“Because if such sabotage is possible in a situation when the people wouldn’t be released anyway, then what can we expect or say in regards to any other person who could and should have been released as a result of this law?” said Klyuvgant.

In comments obtained by the Christian Science Monitor, political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky explained how Khodorkovsky’s decision “is a direct challenge to Medvedev to separate himself from the Putin era and enforce the laws that he himself has sponsored.” As Piontkovsky elaborated:

“Khodorkovsky is making it necessary for Medvedev to define his position,” says Andrei Piontkovsky, director of the independent Institute for Strategic Studies in Moscow. “His challenge is very clever, legally and politically. He isn’t demanding that he be freed, rather just for confirmation that Medvedev has been made aware of his case. . . The ball is now in Medvedev’s court. Will he choose to follow the logic of the law, and risk a damaging split with Putin? He will have to make a choice, and that could determine Medvedev’s own political future.”

Additional reading:
• Who Fears a Free Mikhail Khodorkovsky? – NY Times Magazine

The announcement from the prosecution came as a surprise since, aside from the fact that the case had become seemingly endless, Prosecutor Gyulchekhra Ibragimova had previously told presiding Judge Viktor Danilkin that “maybe, yes,” there would be more witnesses on Monday. Even after the revised announcement, however, Prosecutor Valery Lakhtin stipulated that they maintain the right to call more witnesses at a later point in time. “This is an inalienable right of both the defense and the prosecution,” he said.

Khodorkovsky and Lebedev were both convicted on controversial charges of fraud in 2005, and have been sitting in prison ever since. In the current case, the two are charged with embezzling all of the oil produced by Yukos between 1998 and 2003 and profiting from its sale. Since the beginning of court hearings on March 9, 2009, prosecutors read out chosen passages at length from the hefty 188-volume case, not calling their first witness until the end of September. But neither that witness nor any of the proceeding 50 others testified to having any knowledge that any oil had been stolen at all.

The defense, meanwhile, has a list of 250 witnesses that it would like to call to court. Chiefly among them is Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is widely believed to have personally ordered the original case against Khodorkovsky. In an interview earlier this month with the British newspaper The Independent, the former Yukos CEO issued a series of questions that he wants Putin to answer under oath. Regardless of what witnesses the defense ends up successfully bringing to court, Khodorkovsky is expected to testify first. Lebedev, in his turn, has said that he will be the last.

Compiled from reports by Gazeta.ru.

Khodorkovsky, known as an oligarch who was once Russia’s richest man, is currently facing new charges in a second criminal case against Yukos. He and co-defendant Platon Lebedev are accused by the Russian government of embezzling oil products in the sum of $27.5 billion, a charge the defense says is absurd and refuted by obvious, undisputed facts. Khodorkovsky’s lawyers are now planning to call on the prime minister, who is widely believed to have personally ordered Khodorkovsky’s arrest, as a witness in the case.

“Your prosecutors claim I ran Yukos not as an official chairman, but as the leader of an organized criminal group,” Khodorkovsky asks Putin. “When you discussed Yukos’s problems with me, with whom did you think you were talking?”

“Your prosecutors accuse me of stealing Yukos’ production from 1998 to 2003. When you, in 2003, personally congratulated Yukos for its successes in commercial and social activities, is this what you were referring to?” he goes on.

Responding through his lawyers, Khodorkovsky told the Independent that he believes Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to be sincere in his stated desire to fight corruption, as well as to reform the country’s law enforcement agencies and judicial system. “But reasonably soon, the president’s actions will bring him to a boundary, after which specific changes will not be possible without modernizing the political system as a whole,” he stipulated. Khodorkovsky added that whether or not Medvedev can successfully implement such modernization remains unclear.

During the interview, the imprisoned oligarch categorically denied rumors that he had been offered release under condition of leaving the country or staying out of politics.

Despite all talk of corruption, Khodorkovsky said that he does not believe the outcome of the current case against him to have been predetermined. “But whatever happens, I am going to defend my position and my innocence,” he said. Asked whether he was prepared to spend another twenty years behind bars in the case that he is found guilty and handed a maximum sentence, Khodorkovsky asserted that he doesn’t plan to despair.

Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri Peskov, told the newspaper Vedomosti that the prime minister would be informed about the letter but was unlikely to read it, let alone answer it. He added that Putin usually does not enter into dialogue with convicts.

For the Independent article in its entirety, click here.

Khodorkovsky and an associate, Platon Lebedev, were charged on June 30th with stealing some 350 million tons of oil and laundering $28 billion. According to the Kommersant newspaper, the new accusations differ little from earlier ones. The executive’s legal team said the move was a political one.

Reuters quotes Robert Amsterdam, one of Khodorkovsky’s international attorneys:
“The Russians have a problem, as the charges, as in earlier proceedings, are on the face of it absurd.”

“This buys them time and while we have not completed a review of the charges, they seem similar, if not identical,” he said. “This is an entirely political case and it can only be resolved at a political level.”

Throughout his whole trail, Khodorkovsky has maintained that he was the victim of a political attack. He maintains that his arrest in 2003, and the subsequent dismantling of Yukos were a retaliation for funding opposition political parties, and had more to do with the re-nationalization of Russian oil resources than with tax-evasion or fraud.

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Read more from Bloomberg.

In part, the resolution decries the “disproportionate use of force” and violence used against demonstrators during March 3rd opposition protests known as “Marches of Dissent.” It demands that an investigation be mounted, and that those responsible be brought to justice, calling for the release of those protesters still behind bars. The Parliament also regrets the fact that Russia regards an electoral monitoring mission from the OSCE as interference in Russia’s internal affairs, and deplores the “illegal treatment of opposition candidates” in the election.

At its Strasbourg session, MEPs also called on Dmitri Medvedev, in his new capacity as president of the Russian Federation, to review the treatment of imprisoned public figures, including Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, “whose imprisonment has been assessed by most observers as having been politically motivated.”

The resolution was enacted in consideration of “increased pressure on opposition groups and non-governmental organisations to refrain from any activities directed against the president and the government, preventing the media from reporting on any such activities.”

It also notes that “democracy has been weakened in Russia, in particular by the government control of all major TV stations and most radio stations, the spread of self-censorship among the print media, new restrictions on the right to organise public demonstrations and a worsening climate for non-governmental organisations.”

The European Parliament also calls on Russia to foster the necessary conditions to create a new “Partnership and Cooperation Agreement” between EU member states and the Russian Federation, commenting that “that respect for the rule of law, democracy and human rights must be an important part of any future agreement with Russia.” The previous agreement expired in 2007.

Read the complete resolution here.